Horseshoe Crabs The horseshoe crab is not a crab at all, but is more closely related to spiders,not so much the kind of spiders that you would find on land but sea spiders. One of the interesting features of the horseshoe crab is that horseshoe crab blood is a light blue instead of red like ours. The reason for this is because their blood is copper based instead of iron based. The horseshoe crab has been around for over 500 million years and has changed very little in that time. At one time they were thought to be extinct. They are a descendant of the trilobite and still resemble one when they are first born. As a kid, growing up in New Jersey, I would find horseshoe crabs washed up on the shore. Especially in the spring. They always fascinated me because they looked like large versions of the trilobite fossils we would extract from rock in upper New York state. Mosquito Lagoon in Titusville Florida Now as an adult living on the east coast of Florida (Just a couple of miles from the JFK Space Center). I spend a lot of time on the beaches and exploring Mosquito Lagoon by boat. Mosquito Lagoon is the home of large numbers of horseshoe crabs. This has resurrected my fascination with horseshoe crabs, I created this site for anyone else like me that has a fascination for the horseshoe crab. | |
|
